Sony World Photography Awards: Winners

Winners of the Open categories and National Awards in the Sony World Photography Awards 2017 are announced

2017 marks the 10th anniversary of the Sony-sponsored awards that are produced by the World Photography Organisation. This year saw a record number of participating photographers with 227,596 images entered across the awards’ Professional, Open and Youth competitions. 183 countries were represented in the submissions, 49 of which are represented on the shortlist, with photographers from a further 11 countries reaching the commended list.

Ten stunning photographs from around the world are crowned the winners of the Open categories in the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards. The winners of the Open competition were selected from more than 105,000 entries, with the expert panel of judges looking for the best single photographs across ten categories.

Each of the ten winning photographs display huge photographic talent and creativity, from a stunning wildlife shot of flamingos in Walvis Bay, Namibia (Alessandra Meniconzi) to the ice blue and white of winter (Hiroshi Tanita) and a beautifully simple portrait (Alexander Vinogradov). Scale is used to stunning effect to capture more than 1300 people practicing Tai-Chi in China (Jianguo Gong) and architecture in Berlin (Tim Cornbill) while a crucial goal-scoring moment in an underwater rugby match is photographed by Camilo Diaz. A subtle palette of colour is used in both the Enhanced (Lise Johansson) and Travel (Ralph Gräf) category winners while black and white photography is the choice for the Street Photography winner (Constantinos Sofikitis).

Chair of the Open competition, journalist and photographer Damien Demolder, said of the winning Open images: “It has been a pleasure and an inspiration to be exposed to such a volume of great work, and a privilege too that I could share in the personal moments, the joys, tears, life and losses of photographers from all around the globe who recorded their experiences through their pictures.”

The ten Open category winners are:

Architecture – Tim Cornbill (UK)

Culture – Jianguo Gong (China)

Enhanced – Lise Johansson (Denmark)

Motion – Camilo Diaz (Colombia)

Nature – Hiroshi Tanita (Japan)

Portraits – Alexander Vinogradov (Russia)

Still Life – Sergey Dibtsev (Russia)

Street Photography – Constantinos Sofikitis (Greece)

Travel – Ralph Gräf (Germany)

Wildlife – Alessandra Meniconzi (Switzerland)

Each winning photographer receives a Sony α7 II with lens kit and will now compete to win the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards’ Open Photographer of the Year title, a trip to the winners’ awards ceremony in London in April and $5,000 US dollars in cash prizes. The overall winner will be announced on the 20th April alongside the winners of the Professional competition (judged on a body of work).

Sony World Photography Awards National Awards

Also announced are the winners of the National Awards. The National Awards is a global program to find the best single photographs taken by local photographers in 66 countries. The National Awards is now in its fourth year and for the first time this year it opened up to photographers from Cambodia, Nepal, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates.